Those companies only want to offer BTC as a payment option but don't want to hold crypto themselves. So they didn't really choose BTC to start with. Which makes sense since most companies need to pay their costs in fiat money.
It's the same thing as a US company wanting to sell to Europe but not wanting Euros, because they pay their costs in USD.
I think the point here is probably that Paypal is noticing that an increasing amount of consumers have crypto and would like to pay with them, so they offer this possibility.
Bitcoin is just another currency, and indeed most businesses don't want to hold them because they need to hold their local fiat. That doesn't mean consumers don't want to use Bitcoin tho.
What PayPal is offering is not even close to what BitPay is doing. On PayPal you will only be able to use cryptocurrency that you bought from PayPal, you cannot transfer cryptocurrency in or out of your account. All you can do is buy cryptocurrency from PayPal and then sell it back to them at a later time.
I never used bitpay but I don't think it's their fault to have to request passport verification. As a money transmitter they are required to answer to KYC rules, which includes passport or other docs verification to ensure you are who you are.
If you are wondering why Paypal never asked for your passport, it's probably because you eventually linked Paypal to another KYC-compatible entity, such as your bank (by linking your bank, sending money with your credit card, etc).
I assume in the case of bitpay you would only link your btc wallet which in itself doesn't offer KYC verifications.
Lots of other services continue to function with no such requirements. Bitpay only did it recently after many years of business and there was no regulatory change
I also don't understand how it is logically any different from the merchant accepting btc themselves and choosing to do the conversion themselves
There are many cases where businesses go beyond the legal requirements for whatever reason. Coinbase for example has explained that they make shady backdoor deals with regulators.
Here in Ireland, i am living in a rural location half hour drive from small city (70k people) and have 1000/100mbit fiber to home.
Used to be fairly bad "up to" 3mbit wifi wireless, then 70mbit "4g" wireless, with serious contention in evenings and issues everytime wind or rain occurred (which is every day in west of ireland!)
The government has a plan to connecting everyone to fiber, this forced the local at&t like company (eir/eircon) to try connect as many people as they could, which they done with surprising speed
